Rebooting my blog, again

I feel that every few years I write a post like this. It’s filled with statements like “Life got busy”, or “I had a problem with my server and didn’t notice”, or some other reason that seems insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

This time around though I have a very good reason for a 5-year break in my blogging activities. It started out as being just generally busy with travel, and ended up with the birth of my beautiful daughter who, at the time of this writing, is about to have her 3rd birthday. It’s been a very fulfilling experience that regardless has eaten up any spare time I have for such frivolities as blogging.

So let me take this moment to recap the past few years to kickstart my blog again!

I’ve now been working at Salesforce for over 8 years, and am still loving it. Salesforce is a fantastic place to work, and there have been tons of places for me to move and grow my career without feeling stagnated. I’ve continued my instructional activities there, giving regular brown-bag presentations on various iOS development topics, which has been referred to as “Nachbaur University”. It also provides a good opportunity to travel, which my wife and I do together as often as we can. Because of this, we’ve spent a great deal of time in Santa Monica, San Francisco, Seattle, and a few other offices over time.

My wife Deanna has finished her Ph.D, which was a very difficult process, but it’s very fulfilling to see such a huge accomplishment come to fruition. Between her work, research, and writing her thesis, things were very busy around the house, especially with travelling to speak at conferences.

As our schedule slowed down a bit, we decided to start a family. Our daughter was born healthy and happy, nicknamed “Ace”. Newborns of course are no easy picnic, so times have been busy. We still travel, just a bit less, but this means that Ace is developing a love for travel too, including beaches, surfing, golfing, and nature.

Since Deanna and I both work from home (with the occasional trip to the office, or in Deanna’s case, teaching at a variety of locations around the West Coast), we have the luxury of spending every day with Ace. Unless I’m traveling, not a day goes by where I don’t get to cuddle or play with her during breaks at work. On occasions, even from an early age, Ace will sit on my lap and type on her keyboard to help daddy work, while I attend some video conference or another.

Which takes us to where we are now. In a pre-child world, where free time was abundant but seemingly scarce, having Ace in our lives has definitely taught me the meaning of free-time, or the lack thereof. With this newfound perspective on productivity, having my daughter attend preschool part of the week is a welcome sight. I’m excited to have the opportunity to go back to blogging, especially since I have so much more diverse things to cover than just iOS development.

Our lives are definitely richer now than they ever were, and it’s brought my family closer together than I could have thought possible. This post is the first of what will hopefully be many more on this site, not just about development, but about how my family has learned to balance work, life, travel, recreation, education, and everything in between.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that one should work to live, not the other way around. Having this little mental sponge around me is a constant reminder that not only am I here to provide a living for my family, it’s also my job to educate and inspire Ace to be the best person she can be. In the process, anything that can be applicable to the rest of a larger audience, I can share here to help with my passion for knowledge sharing and education.

I’d like to thank you for reading this! If you have any thoughts or ideas about what I’ve said, please let me know in the comments. And if you’re coming here for the first time, welcome, and feel free to subscribe for updates!